


Birth, Controlled

by Cinco



Category: Being Erica
Genre: Gen, Pregnancy, Therapy, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinco/pseuds/Cinco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mild spoilers for Season 4, particularly episode 4x03, Baby Mama. Some discussion of episode 1x05, Adultescence. Canon ships are mentioned (Adam/Erica, Lenin/Samantha), but this is mainly gen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birth, Controlled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pathstotread](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pathstotread/gifts).



> These are my favorite characters on one of my favorite shows, so it's hard to go wrong. Really I'd just love something about Erica growing into her doctor training and the continuing challenge of 50/50 Press and her personal relationships.
> 
> I love Erica. She's been a huge inspiration to me the past few years. She's not perfect and she doesn't always make the right choices, but she's brave and dedicated to her personal growth, and I wholeheartedly admire that. Her professional relationship/friendship with Julianne is fascinating to me, and I'm a sucker for sisterly blonds, so I would love to see Sam included somehow. I think her relationship with Adam is remarkable. It's complicated and messy but at the heart of it, I see two people who genuinely love each other and challenge each other. So I'd love if the fic included that relationship, but I know it isn't everybody's cup of tea, so it's not a dealbreaker for me. I'm only partly caught up on S4, so don't feel the need to make this compliant with current canon.

Things were so different now, Erica reflected as she followed Sam through the aisles of the huge, brightly-lit baby superstore. Unlike last time, this would go off without a hitch. She would throw Sam a beautiful shower and be an amazing godmother to Sam’s baby. And she would not sing any karaoke whatsoever.

Judith had registered at a fancy baby boutique in the city, but Sam had chosen a chain store in the suburbs with a website, free shipping, and drastically lower prices. She’d done careful research and had asked their mother questions, and even the doctors and nurses in Obstetrics, so the actual registering was just a matter of finding the right item and pointing the barcode gun at it. It went quickly and was very satisfying, especially since Sam let Erica use the gun while she carefully checked items off her list: stroller, car seat, diaper bag, high chair—a simple wooden one, Erica was happy to see. Babies don’t need the latest technology, she thought—sometimes the old ways were the best ways.

Sam had asked Erica out to lunch the week after the celebratory family brunch, where they’d learned the truth about their mother’s strange behavior concerning Sam’s pregnancy. They met, of course, at Goblins. It was the easiest place for Erica to sneak off to during the work day, so Julianne could come ask questions if she needed a detail about one of Erica’s projects, and there was no travel time or hassle parking the car. Plus, Ivan knew exactly how Erica liked her lattes and had Sam’s temporarily caffeine-free order memorized.

“Samantha!” Ivan exclaimed as she came through the door. “How are you, gorgeous? What can I get you, your usual?” She nodded. “One Ginger Mint Rapture with two sugars coming up,” he said, already halfway down the bar to make it.

Sam and Ivan were discussing Dave’s whereabouts when Erica walked through the door at the end of the bar to join Sam in front of it. They chatted with Ivan while he made their drinks, and then took them to a table at the back, Erica’s favorite.

Once they’d ordered lunch and settled in, sipping their drinks, they marveled over how their mother had managed to keep such a huge secret for so long. “She never told anyone,” said Sam. “I can’t imagine how she lived with that for so many years, when she clearly felt so guilty. How awful.”

“I know,” Erica sighed. “It doesn’t seem like that long ago to us, but things were really different then. She didn’t have options, and it wasn’t something people talked about. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been.” Erica looked into her latte thoughtfully and then suddenly chuckled. When Sam raised an eyebrow, Erica explained, “I guess it explains why she doesn’t much like great-aunt Avra.”

They laughed, and then Sam’s expression changed to a more serious one. “About the baby, Erica, well. There’s something I wanted to ask you.” She put down her teacup.

“Sure, Sam, you know you can ask me anything,” Erica replied, mirroring the motion of putting down her mug, ready to listen to whatever it was that Sam had to say. All her recent experience in coming to understand people’s inner lives, their thoughts and feelings—it was easier to apply it when she knew someone well, and Erica had known Sam for her entire life. Besides, Erica thought she already knew what Sam might say.

“Lenin and I want you to be our baby’s godmother,” Sam said--nearly blurted, really. “I’ll understand if you’d rather we chose someone who already has children, or if you’re not comfortable, or—“

“Absolutely not,” Erica broke in. “I’d be delighted. In fact, I’m ecstatic. You know I’d do anything to make your baby happy. But nothing is going to happen to you or Lenin, you’re going to die at ninety-three surrounded by great-grandchildren, do you hear me?” She grinned and tried to look menacing at the same time, just to make Sam laugh. It worked, and they finished their lunches happily, talking about the amazing life Sam’s child would soon begin.

 

*

Erica marveled at the 180-degree change in her mother’s perspective since the grandparent brunch just a few weeks before as Barb sailed through the living room, straightening the bright paper decorations and ensuring that the couch pillows were just so for Sam’s baby shower. Julianne was in her element too, busily helping with the preparations. Erica introduced her to all of Sam’s childhood and work friends, and everything was perfectly in place when Sam arrived.

The whole afternoon went off without a hitch—the mood in the room was joyful and excited, and Julianne was having the time of her life organizing the party games. After a complicated one where guests were asked to guess all sorts of things about Sam and Lenin’s plans for the new baby (what color they’d chosen for the nursery and their top three choices for a middle name), Sam took a break and pulled Erica over to the dining room, which was serving as the buffet.

“I think Julianne missed her calling,” Sam said conspiratorially. “If you guys ever go out of the publishing business, I think her next career is definitely in party planning.”

“Hush, don’t give her any ideas,” Erica said, half meaning it. She looked at Barb, who was sitting with a group of Sam’s work friends, all of them chatting and laughing. “Mom looks so happy. What a wonderful change, huh?”

“I’m so glad she told us,” Sam agreed. “Now she can be happy for me and ready to meet her grandson. I’m so excited, but so scared. It’s such a big change!” She reached out for Erica’s hand, and Erica pulled her into a hug instead.

“Oh, Sammy,” she said. “You have nothing to be scared of! You’re going to be an amazing mom, and Lenin and Mom and Dad and I will be here for you every step of the way. Really, it’s going to be great, don’t worry.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam said, smiling, and sniffled a little as she broke the hug. “Sorry, hormones,” she explained. “I’m driving Lenin crazy, I’m pretty sure.”

“You’re worth it,” Erica said. “Are you ready for whatever Julianne has planned next? Do you want more to eat first? I could make you a plate.” They both looked at the vast spread set up on the table—Barb had gone a little crazy, probably her way of making up for the brunch fiasco. “There’s always plenty of…” Erica trailed off expectantly, and Sam joined her. “BRISKET!” they said together. “Ah, Mom,” Erica said fondly as the two of them giggled, which drew Barb’s attention.

“Come back over here, girls,” Barb called to them from across the room. “We’re going to play Pin the Diaper on the Baby! Sam, time to get blindfolded!” Sam rolled her eyes at Erica but dutifully went back into the living room where Julianne was waiting with a pastel blindfold near a huge poster of a cartoon baby thumbtacked to the wall. Erica watched, smiling, thinking that she’d better find some great new projects at work before Julianne started a party-planning side business.

Erica started to cross the room to join the others when she realized that there would be no better time to get her gift for Sam and Lenin out from its hiding spot than when Sam was blindfolded, so she headed towards her old bedroom. Her mood was so good that she barely paused when she found herself in Dr. Tom’s office, just smiled widely at him and sat down in the chair in front of his desk.

“Good day?” he asked.

“Fantastic,” she said. “The shower is perfect, Sam and Mom are both happy, and I’m going to be Sam’s baby’s godmother! I’m in such a different place from where I was three years ago, and I feel great about it.”

“That’s wonderful,” Dr. Tom said. “The last new baby in your life brought a quite a different set of emotions, as I recall.”

Erica sighed. “That shower was a disaster,” she said, thinking of Judith and elderberry juice and her desperate need to impress Judith’s responsible couple friends. Then she brightened and continued. “This is just the opposite—I have a business, a career, I’m in a great relationship. I see a future for myself. And I can still be Crazy Aunt Erica if I want to be! For real this time. Things are so different now, and all for the better. I have everything under control.”

Dr. Tom leaned back in his chair and looked at her thoughtfully for a long moment. “‘If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.’ Mario Andretti.”

Erica chuckled. “You’re saying I’m not going fast enough?”

Dr. Tom shrugged.”Only you know,” he said. “Now, on the subject of babies--do you remember when Sam came to visit you during your last year of grad school?”

Erica pursed her lips, remembering. “Right, for a long weekend in the spring? I thought she’d want to party, so I made all these plans for us, and then she just seemed kind of distant and annoyed with me the whole time. Is Sam my patient?”

Dr. Tom nodded, and suddenly Erica was standing at the bus terminal, just as a large, loud bus rumbled up. Erica looked down at her beatnik-like outfit--black flowy everything. She was probably even wearing her old favorite crocheted hat. She put a hand to her head to check--yup.

The bus driver got out and opened up the luggage compartment on the side, and Erica waited as the passengers exited and began hunting for their bags. When Sam--early twenties Sam, with longer hair and much brighter clothes--stepped off the bus, she immediately hurtled into Erica’s arms, shouting her name.

“Hi, Sammy,” Erica said. “I’m glad you’re here! How was your trip? Do you need to get your bag from--” she gestured to the side of the bus, where one man had given up waiting patiently and had climbed inside the compartment to fish out his bag.

“No, Mom,” Sam teased, and turned slightly so Erica could see her bulging backpack.

“Okay, then, back to my place,” Erica said.

At the apartment, after Sam put down her bag and Erica got each of them a drink and a sandwich, Erica tried to get a feel for what the lesson she’d been sent to learn could be. “I made some plans for us, parties and things, and I thought you might want to see some of campus, or go to a movie. I can introduce you around, or we could go clubbing. But why don’t you tell me what you want to do?”

Sam looked a little confused, and Erica realized that she didn’t usually give Sam options when they got together--she was fairly bossy on the older sister scale, probably. “You’re my guest; you should get to choose how we spend our weekend together.”

Sam smiled, and Erica smiled in relief. “I just want to hang out with you,” Sam said. “Maybe we could walk around campus, go shopping, see a movie later? We can talk, catch up.” She fidgeted a little with her sleeve, and Erica realized they were already well off-track from the way this weekend had gone originally. She’d taken Sam to a protest right from the bus and they’d gone to a couple of parties after that. The two of them had barely spoken beyond shouting slogans and ordering drinks the whole weekend. Maybe Sam just needed a little sister time?

They began with shopping in the village and then took the long walk back to campus to go to Erica’s old favorite pizza joint, the one that had gone out of business a few years after her graduation. Tasting their deep-dish pepperoni after so long was another entry on her Highlights of Therapy list; she’d have to remember to tell Dr. Tom about it. Sam seemed perfectly normal, chatting up a storm about her friends, her classes, Josh. She was still considering veterinary school but was leaning heavily towards medical school, and she and Josh had had some sort of fight. As always, Sam wouldn’t hear a word against him, but she also didn’t leap to his defense the way she ordinarily would have.

Erica decided to press her luck a little. “Are things okay with you and Josh?”

“He maybe hasn’t been as supportive about something as I’d like. I don’t know. It’s not a big deal, it’s probably nothing.” Sam was holding a pizza crust in one hand, but Erica knew she wasn’t going to eat it. Sam hated pizza crusts--there were two already on her plate.

“What is it that he isn’t supportive of? Do you want to talk about it?”

Sam looked thoughtful for a minute and then put down the crust and balled up the napkin that had been in her lap and tossed it onto her plate over the crusts. “Yes. But not here. Let’s go back to your place, okay?”

“Sure,” Erica said, and flagged their waiter to get the check.

She had to struggle all the way home not to ask what it was that Sam wanted to talk about, but finally they were home. In an effort to not scare Sam away--her confidences were not easily won--Erica made them each a cup of tea and then sat down on the couch across from Sam.

“What did you want to talk about?” Erica asked, calmly, as if she hadn’t been holding that question in for the last hour.

“Well, um,” Sam started. “It’s probably nothing, and if I just wait I’m sure everything will be fine. But--you know how my periods have always been irregular? Well, I haven’t had one in almost four months, and that’s longer than normal, and we had a condom break.” She trailed off, looking to one side rather than making eye contact with Erica.

“Oh, Sammy. Why don’t you just take a pregnancy test so you can stop worrying?” Erica set her teacup down on the coffee table so she could put her hand over Sam’s.

Sam’s eyes were wet. “I’m just really scared,” she admitted. “I need someone there with me, and Josh says I’m being stupid, that I’m just stressed and everything’s fine.”

“Well, he’s probably right, it likely is just stress,” Erica pointed out, despite her dislike for Josh. “He wouldn’t stay with you while you did the test?”

“I couldn’t ask. He was just so dismissive, and I was hoping that my period would start and I could just forget about it. But...” She clutched Erica’s hand, but she wasn’t crying.

“It’s okay, Sam. I’m here and I’m going to help you get through this. Are you okay to go to the store, or do you want to wait here while I go?”

 

After an awkward trip to the drugstore where Erica tried her best to distract a still visibly upset Sam, Erica herded Sam and the newly-purchased pregnancy kit, minus the box and insert, into the bathroom back at her apartment.

“I’m going to read you the instructions. Wait! Do you need water?” Erica called through the door.

“No,” Sam said, slightly muffled. “I’m ready, just tell me what to do.” Erica heard Sam unzip and nodded. She read off the directions, and within two minutes Sam flushed, turned the sink tap on and off, and opened the bathroom door. Erica stepped in and they both looked down at the pregnancy test.

“You know we have to wait,” she said. “Come in the living room with me so you don’t drive yourself crazy staring at it.”

“I’ll drive myself crazy either way,” Sam admitted.

“Well, sure,” Erica said, “But there’s no reason to just stand there. Come with me to the kitchen and I’ll get us some drinks. And hey, I really like those shoes--where did you get them?”

Sam rolled her eyes at Erica’s distraction techniques but played along, and even waited until Erica announced “It’s time” before going back to the bathroom. Then, in the doorway, she stopped.

“I--I can’t. Erica? Will you look for me?” She looked pale and drawn.

Erica nodded and stepped past her into the bathroom to reach for the test; she turned it over to read the symbol there.

“It’s negative,” she said, and Sam started to cry. Erica reached over to hug her. “It’s okay, Sammy, everything’s fine!” She stroked a hand through Sam’s ponytail. “Shhh, it’s okay.”

After they’d moved to the couch and Sam had gone through a glass of water and a handful of Kleenex, she was red-faced but mainly through crying.

“Sammy,” Erica began. “You know that if you did get pregnant Mom and Dad and I would help you through it, right? We’d do whatever you wanted us to, whatever you decided. And Josh--”

“Josh can’t even support me when I’m not pregnant,” Sam sniffled and wrapped herself in a knitted throw she’d taken from the back of the couch.. “You did exactly what I needed, listened to me, took care of me. Josh didn’t.”

Erica frowned. Josh was far from her favorite person, even after their trip to Florida when she’d finally gotten a little window into his psyche--or rather into her own. Saying something negative about Josh might cause Sam to shut her out, and Erica knew from experience that nothing she could do would break the two of them up no matter how hard she tried.

“He probably just didn’t know what you needed,” Erica said eventually. “I’m your sister, I understand what a pregnancy scare is like--not personally, but, you know. It can’t be the same for a guy. Talk to him when you get back, when you’re not so stressed out. Maybe he can be there for you now?”

Sam nodded and gave her a tiny smile, and Erica got up to give Sam a few minutes to herself, and maybe get her a sweater.

She walked through the door to the bedroom and found herself in Dr. Tom’s office. She sat down in the armchair in front of the desk and waited.

“Josh met Sam’s bus with a dozen red and white roses,” Dr. Tom said, giving Erica the coda to her weekend with Sam. “He apologized for not being there for her, and Sam started taking oral contraceptives so they could avoid future scares.”

Erica nodded. “I had no idea she’d ever been through anything like that. What happened the first time, when we partied all weekend?”

“She hid how worried she was from you; she didn’t mention it again to Josh, and her period started later that week. Saved by the bell,” he said, and shrugged slightly. “It was a bad few weeks, no more than that.”

“I’m glad I could be there for her,” Erica said. “That I got to save her one of those weeks. Jenny had a few scares, but she only told me about them after the fact. And it could just as easily have happened to me, I’ve just been lucky. More ‘you are your patient.’” She smiled. “And ‘I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together,’ ‘goo goo ga joo.’”

“You’re still mad about missing the Lennon concert?” Dr. Tom said.

“No, just still in a Beatles mindset. Actually, I wanted to thank you for sending me back there just for the pizza--Cafe Pizzaria, my favorite. And I got to eat it again even though they’ve been closed for years. This therapy is always challenging, but there are some perks.” She smiled, and Dr. Tom returned it.

Her thoughts returned to Sam. “Sammy wasn’t ready for a baby then, but now she is. She’s with an amazing man who supports her in everything, she has a job she loves, and her terror at being pregnant back then is excitement and joy now. I get to be there for her through all of it.”

“Indeed you do,” Dr. Tom said. “Now go pin the diaper on the baby.”

Erica was suddenly in the present, blindfolded and spinning, holding a thumbtack with something fluffy on it--right, a cotton ball. Therapy would persist in sending her back at moments like these! She took a stab at putting the pin in the wall, her fingers registering smooth wall rather than poster just as she heard laughing and hooting. She took another thumbtack as it was placed into her hand, mentally shrugged, and tried again.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear recipient, thank you for giving me the chance to interact with and explore this universe more fully than I ever have before! I love this show dearly, and rewatching it obsessively has been great fun--and writing in its universe was a challenge! Although I’ve enjoyed Season 4 very much, I was a little sad that Sam’s pregnancy storyline wasn’t prominently featured, so I decided to use her baby shower as a jumping-off point. I hope you like it, and Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Thank you to my betas, all of whom helped me enormously: [retracted until after the reveal]. Without your contributions, this story would not exist.


End file.
